Favorite Non-Wizard/Sorcerer BBEG?

[Enran]

You know, maybe this is just a combination of coincidence and confirmation bias, but it's seeming much easier to find stories about awesome wizard and sorcerer BBEGs that contributed to a great campaign than to find such stories about any other class as BBEG. Like, wizard and sorcerer seem more common for the role than every other class combined, assuming a classed character is the BBEG (though now that I think about it, I've actually not found many stories about games with monstrous BBEGs either). So I want to collect some good alternative stories here. Whether it's because they're monsters of most variety except dragon and certain Outsiders, or because they're still humanoids but highly advanced in a different class, these guys should not be utilizing Sorcerer/Wizard casting, at least not primarily (though who dips an arcane casting class?).

Which have been your favorite non-wizard/sorcerer BBEGs, the ones who provided the most engaging challenges and pushed the campaign in the most fun and interesting directions? It doesn't matter whether you were a player or a DM, though if you were DM, try not to be too biased simply on account of it being your own creation. :smallwink:

[erok0809]

Well my favorite non-sorcerer/wizard BBEG that I've used was a druid who liked earth spells and turned into an earth elemental. He wanted to demolish civilization and bring society back to its nomadic days, turning most of the world into a desert where he would "rule" in so far as no one would dare challenge him or steal from him. I don't think that's what you're really looking for though, since druid is just as powerful a class as the others.

I have an evil shadow-templated shadow hand-focused swordsage I haven't gotten to use yet that I like...I can't say whether or not she's interesting as a big bad though, seeing as she hasn't been used yet.

[Azoth]

One of my favorites that I have used was a multiclassed, and prestiged to Baator and back mageslayer build. Just found it. Classes were Ranger1/Monk2/Rogue2/Barbarian2/Occult Slayer5/Witch Slayer2/Warblade2/Swordsage4 and it had a massive amount of ACFs.

Anyway, it was a high magic game with everyone playing at least partial casters. This guy shrugged off anything with a partial save, could reflect any missed shot with a ray/orb, and just flat out reflect 27 spell levels a day. With gear/race (templates), he was flat out immune to necromancy, transmutation, Enchantment, and divination. He could also reliably see through most Illusions.

He was a typical radical extremist. He wanted to bring down the mageocracy, and did it up close and personal while having sleeper cells in major cities demolishing schools/temples.

This enemy was fun because he was designed to shut down most things you see at mid/low op, so the party was forced to stop thinking like gods in training and actually face him by outsmarting him and being inventive with their resources. I have never seen a Tier 1 party sweat so much as when they managed to draw him out to fight them. They got desperate enough to drop a disjunction on him.

[Amphetryon]

A Paladin/Kensai extremist, focused around Subduing Smite and Leadership, was the most interesting BBE(G?)G for my group, which tended to be so strongly individualistic that the Lawful aspect was sufficient to make an adversary. The Paladin's goal was to unite all the warring fiefdoms under one banner in order to increase order and harmony. Rather than swathes of dead enemies in her wake, she took prisoners who underwent a 'reeducation program' designed to make them more Law-abiding.

[Novawurmson]

Now that I think about it, most of my BBEGs have been monstrous.

My current campaign's BBEG is a Daelkyr/Lovecraftian horror based on Father Llymic from the Elder Evils book.

In another campaign, the BBEGs were a group of primal horrors based on Native American witches/Native American descriptions of Europeans as found in Ceremony (http://www.amazon.com/Ceremony-Penguin-Classics-Deluxe-Edition/dp/0143104918)/the Furies. That one was especially fun because the players were protecting someone at the top of a mountain conducting a ritual while the unimaginably huge witch-things were crawling out of the sea and tunnels at the base of the mountain. It was less about really killing them and more about delaying them.

I've told the full story a ton of times, but I once had a LN troll monk as the BBEG of a campaign.

[TheifofZ]

One campaign actually, the BBEG was secretly one of the PCs (A warlock, actually) who just happened to be the reincarnation of the fragment of an ancient god of destruction. His goal was just to gain enough power to orchestrate the gathering of the rest of the fragments and his revival.

Unfortunately, many groups I've run with either prefer Wizard or Sorcerer BBEGs, or the campaign crumbles before we see who actually is the mysterious force of darkness and yadda yadda, so I don't have too many examples I can use.

[Alistaroc]

Shortly after the Book of Erotic Deeds was discovered in my play group, it became a huge subject for jokes(most of them involving horny WotC employees).
So I of course found the PDF and used it to create a Feykissed Nymph Seductress 10/Fey Enticer 2 as a joke.

She appeared in a smaller side campaign that I ran with about half the players in the full group.
They said
"Give us something unusual."
I pulled out the character sheet and used her as the driving force behind a rebellion against the crown.
She separated the players from each other in a labyrinth of traps, forced them to make repeated DC 23 or 24 Will saves until they died, and eventually caused a TPK.

They've been very careful to ask for unusual things that are not her. :smallbiggrin:




Probably the best non-joke BBEG though was an undead Ranger/Barbarian that would dodge behind cover, fire poisoned arrows, and then smash the face of anyone who tried to get around the cover. After that everyone realized how big of a deal terrain was, and played a lot smarter. :smallwink: